talks about federal implications of no-fault divorce law. later, lucy barber looks at the history of marches in washington and talks about her book, "marching on washington." "washington journal" host: good morning. in this edition of the "washington journal, we asked the question, what is killing jobs? we got this from the "baltimore sun." charles campbell says that free treat -- free trade is sending jobs overseas. on the other side, lack of workers train for today's needs is the cause of u.s. employment

was. we want to find out from you what you think is killing jobs here in the united states. if you want to get involved in the conversation, give us a call. the telephone numbers are on the screen. you can also get in touch with us with social media. our e-mail address is a journal @c-span.org. if you want to get them off of that conversation at a speck -- at facebook, go to our page. we are beginning this edition of the "washington journal" with a look at the "baltimore sun." care debate as to what is killing jobs.

charles campbell is a senior vice president formerly of coal oil. he says it is obvious.

charles campbell finishes up by saying that the quantitative easing rounds had no effect on the u.s. economy. that is what charles campbell says. he says it is free trade sending our jobs overseas. on the other hand, another viewpoint says that their reason

that jobs are flowing to india and china is not american free- trade policy. she goes on to say that we do not favor training and development. we will only graduates 19 million students, several taking six years or more.

this saturday debate, you'd cut, new york, on all line for democrats, you are on the washington journal. guest: any policy that encourages outsourcing, well, americas by the imported products without regard to the point of origin or on the impact that it has on the u.s. economy as a whole. that is where we as a nation need to correct this problem. host: that is mike in utica.

we're moving on to joe on our line for republicans in georgia. caller: you do an incredible job, the best network around. i've been calling for 30 years in your fantastic. there is no question it is the higher taxes, the regulations, too much spending. the only answer is to elect a good conservative like mitt romney and congressman. tom graves is the best in the country. unfortunately we will lose him to redistricting. we are upset about that. our goal is to make this the number one town for mitt romney in the united states. host: we will move on to bob on online for democrats. what is killing jobs in america? is it sending jobs overseas with free trade in those policies? or is it not enough folks here

in the united states trained to do the work that is necessary to make as a 21st century economic power? caller: beyond the statistics, the real problem is that the american people are incapable of killing these jobs when they are available. i really believe that what has happened in the united states presently is that big business holds onto a great deal of money, something like $4 trillion out there, just sitting there waiting for the elections. i really believe that big business wants what they want and they are holding the country, as the saying goes, hostage until they get their way on these elections. you have to have money moving. that is where the bottleneck is. if they got that money out there and invested it, but as long as -- until they get their way,

either tax reform or no taxes or whatever, they are going to hold this country hostage and that is where all the money is at right now. they are not letting it go. they use the term that until the financial situation is ripe for them to start spending the money, they are not going to let go of it. we all know what met -- what that means. that is my opinion. host: bobbin washington. let's move on to fred at on our line for republicans in north carolina. caller: i think everything you read from the "sun" are appropriate as are some of the commons. we ought to throw obamacare into the mix. if i am a small businessman, i have to be out of my mind to start hiring until i desperately need them. i do not know what overhead will cost me in three years. host: fred, when you make your

budget for your business, what kind of business to you have? caller: i am an employee, not a small business person. but i am speaking from that mine. host: are you thinking of getting into a small business right now? caller: i am looking at retirement in the next few years and i am certainly not going to sit idle. i will certainly start a consulting and see what i can do in that regard. but it is going debate -- alex long and hard at hiring people because i do not know what they will cost me. host: allen on our line for independents in the bronx. caller: i think the oil economy is will what is destroying the jobs here in economy -- here in america. everything that we have today is because we have based on

transportation and on infrastructure, on oil. along with what we have there, we need to invest in research and development -- and no one is even talking about hydrogen fuel cells and the way to build them. or using trucks to use methane for transport. there are so many different ways to power our economy. we need to go electric instead of focusing on oil, which is based on subsidies from the government. i think that is one of the big things that is slowing down our economy. we are not doing the revenue that we should be getting from the oil companies, and the andanies like tefsla

those who want to create an electric economy are being held down by our tax policy. host: we want to take a quick side step and ask you, on the front page of the "new york daily news," ready or not, here comes irene. are you ready for the storm that is getting ready to hit new york later this weekend? caller: the wind has picked up and the flute supply is ready. i am ready for the event -- food supply is ready. i am ready for not having any electricity. i think changing the mindset is what we are going to need to do. host: allen in the bronx, new york. while we're talking about a hurricane, we want to remind you that that secretary of homeland security janet napolitano and craig fugate, but

fema director, bill reed, and george hood will participate in the media availability to discuss the coordinated federal /state relief at word -- relief edwards. i will be this morning and we hope to have coverage for that on one of our c-span platforms. make sure in touch base with our c-span web page. back to the hounds and our discussion on the baltimore sun debate this morning -- what is killing jobs? free trade sending work overseas and destroying the american economy, or the lack of workers train for today's needs is the cause of u.s. employment woes? back to the funds. john on our line for

republicans. john, go ahead. caller: a small-business guy, i have been insolvent my whole life. the federal government does not have a whole lot to do with jobs. it is really an entrepreneur starting something up. currently in richmond and other places i have seen, it is generally local government standing in the way. they put all kinds of obstacles, zoning, whatnot in to make it almost impossible. no heavy industry around. host: john in richmond, virginia. next is al on our line for democrats. caller: the problem with this country is that the politicians

engaged justin talking points and do not engage in the needs of the american people and the country. take for example education. it is clearly obvious that our students are far behind the developing countries in math and science. but does anyone do anything about it? they really do not. my dad has a small business. the major problem as to why we are not able to hire or why there are not enough jobs is that that that there are not people with the skill sets or the ability to actually go out there and generate income for themselves at a decent company, whereby they been can become consumers. host: let me ask you, what kind of business does your dad have? what kind of skill sets are the folks missing? caller: it is an export company.

we export things to libya and central american markets. the skill sets are varied, from basic skills sets to more management-type skills sets. but the issue is not the fact that we do not have enough people to do those jobs, but there are not enough clients out there, whereby the need is generate to hire additional people. it really goes back to, they are plenty of people who can work. and there is a direct correlation with the amount of education they had, whether they have a secondary education, to, and i am willing to pay for your services and it really ties into the fact that they do not have money. our politicians are well paid and there's a strong disconnect on the needs of the american people, for them to change

policies and bring about some decent change in this country. all politicians, democrats, republicans, independents, you name it. we need a third party. host: does the current free- trade policy of this administration hurt or help your business? caller: it does not really apply to the geography that we serve. i really cannot speak of that. host: let's move on to sam in idaho. what is killing jobs in the united states? caller: around 1971, i saw them cutting american wages in half by hiring mexicans. when i saw -- what to mexico and some of them cutting mexican wages and have is shipping them to china. this is exploitation of human

labor and the human condition. this is a world plan that is happening now. it was started by the rockefellers and people -- much more people doing that. but these people are controlling the united states. we have lost our sovereignty because of it. they can be easily taken over by big business and have the whole hog population exploited. we are being exploited and we should get out of this new world order and be a sovereign united states to take care of our problems and have the quality of life we used to have. we of lower our standard of living to meet the rest of the world. then everybody would be happy. host: we're going to leave it there. we will show another graphic from today's "baltimore sun." their shows projected paths for hurricane irene.

we remind our listeners and viewers that we will have live coverage of federal officials from the muck, the department of homeland security, the american red cross, the salvation army, and noaa -- all those folks will be at a news conference at fema headquarters later. we will have coverage live up -- live on c-span. livingston, new jersey, barry on our line for republicans. caller: i think it is big business killing the jobs. it is the amount of money that they can make with a labor from going to other parts of the country. we also have people here that they want tremendous benefits. you have a legal problems, with lawyers suing. you go into a countries in europe where they do not have this, in china where they do not have the suing situation going

on. we have a lot of people trained to answer the phone. it is cheaper to take those call centers to the philippines are india and not bring it here. the only way to stop it is by putting a tariff or maximizing how much can come into this country, and then we start making it. but there are plenty of empty buildings, factories laying idle, they could be started up. in bowling, not even the unions are going after them but the government is going after them. companies see that around the world. why will they come to this country to put up with tassels, the taxes, the unions, and all of the restrictions? until we make those changes, you will not get big business to come here. that will kill this country eventually. there is nothing left that we make here. host: that is buried in lake

livingston, new jersey. next on our line for democrats, cam, you are on the "washington journal." what is killing jobs in america? is that the free-trade policies sending jobs overseas or is a reflection of our inability to produce workers with the training and education that today's employers need? caller: i am a small manufacturer, defense contractor, and i supplied the large corporations. we do parts for military and all that. the large corporations are the culprits. this is not a republican problem, this is not a democratic problem, or independent problem. it is the large corporations. they are looking out for themselves. they do not care for the general public. they do not have the national spirit that we need. we need to forget about this

politics, joined together, and start from the scratch. my son just target high school, and no homework. i am from india. i am accessing the university of dayton. we used a steady and homework in 32 four 0 hours a day. -- three or four hours a day. in india, when they come here, they are at least three grade levels higher. large corporations, they need to invest in schools, the job training, the work ethics. being a small manufacturer, some of our workers work is they think. they cannot get off their cellphones. they do not show up to work. they do not perform their jobs. it is a combination of the work

ethics, the training on the job, and the large corporations. host: we will leave it there in dayton, ohio. in this weekend's republican media dress, dean heller addresses jobs and the job situation here in the united states. this is what he had to say. >> i believe our best days are still ahead, but we need to change course now. let's pass a balanced budget amendment. repeal the president's small business-killing health care law. open up our country to energy exploration. reverse the regulations tying the hands of entrepreneurs across america. we can help an economic recovery by putting more money in the apocrypha pockets of americans. we should be assisting those who lost their jobs and need help. these are all the things that this administration and congress

could be doing immediately to boost economic recovery. host: that is the republican weekend media address, with dean heller, a republican from nevada. you can see that in its entirety at c-span.org. savannah, ga. on our line for republicans, barbara, you're on the "washington journal." caller: the main thing that is taking jobs away is corporations sending jobs overseas, closing down the whole state of north carolina, basically everyone is a factory workers and the textile injury, -- industry, and they have no jobs now. they have destroyed the industry by sending everything overseas. you get it done cheaper, and the stuff we get back from anywhere

is just half as good as what they made in the united states. why can they just bring back something -- do something so that they bring back the company's? host: to you think there are any incentives that congress could put out that would incentivize u.s. corporations to do more work here and not sending it overseas? host: they could give them -- caller: they could give them tax breaks, and and they seemed to sit around and think about what they can stop them from doing next. they just cannot work and pay the wages and keep it -- of business going. if they go broke, they cannot give you a job. if they move out of the country, they can i give you a job. host: we have a twitter from the common one -- i am sorry, from 30 water.

-- dirty water. next up is donna in sarasota, florida on our line for independents. caller: good morning. i have heard so many good ideas, ordinarily i think these sessions are an exercise in pooled ignorance. this morning it has been particularly good. i think the problem is way more complicated than anybody has said so far. everyone has come up with good ideas but they are not listening to each other. i think the loss of jobs started years ago when our manufacturers developed a contempt for the customer. they started building products that the day after warranty, the

knobs and started to fall off, and most of the jobs or overseas. it is not that simple eight course. much of it has to do with polarization between labor and management, neither one listening to each other. polarization between republicans and democrats, everyone thinks he is right and the other guy is dead wrong and they will not hear reach other. so the electorate suffers. government has contempt for the electorate remanufactures have contempt for the customer. i have seen the brands trashed. one clothing manufacturer, they have not only raise their prices but lowered the quality of their yarn. consumers have no deep desire to buy except electronics. people are continuing to buy good electronics. host: the lead in the

"washington post." an extra judicial attack by rebels. fremont, california on our line for democrats. benjamin, you are on the "washington journal." caller: america needs to lead again. high speed rail, we should converted to high-speed freight. that way it could attract businesses to the country. this is the only place on earth

that would have it. maybe china would buy a it from us. that is my idea. host: markets in chicago, you are on the "washington journal." caller: i am a painting contractor in chicago for 38 years. i have been through a lot of recessions. one of the main things killing jobs in our country -- oil prices. people including myself at the gas pump here in chicago, $4 a gallon, and every month my customers come and it is five sunder dollars in gas and more. normally we are up to 150 homes during the summertime. for the last four years, we have done 12 or 15. i got to homes that need the work done, put pressure prices, and people do not call. people are not spending money.

i have written to obama, harry reid, nancy pelosi, our own senator in the area, and i get backache pat e-mail. no one addresses the situation. the food prices have doubled. people are afraid to spend money. i think there are a lot of solutions. i think business 101, supply and demand, if we flood that of mark -- if we flood the market with food, send everyone up to a government plan to start growing food, it would cause prices to come down. host: another tweet. and also with regard to education, this from

cnnmoney.com. texarkana, texas, on our line for independents.

carla, what is killing jobs? caller: these huge banks are trying to keep up what the money that we gave to them that we do not have dared we are struggling to make ends meet. so as the rest of the world. i think that corporations covered by the sec itself that will not whistle blow because everyone is too afraid. all you really need to do is read and be organized. [unintelligible] just make it happen. there is just too much crap going on in the world today. [unintelligible] it is big businesses handing money to the small businesses, but they cannot. [unintelligible] host: more on the libya story

brick this from the "wall street journal." monticello, florida, gaary on online for democrats. you are on the "washington journal." caller: the problem is education. go into any school, sixth grade,

eighth grade, and half of the schools -- kids think they will be professional athletes. voluntary trade creates wealth. every kid should be thinking about what skills will i learn so that i can get the things that i want from someone on a trade basis. host: there seemed to be a big push for trade education back in the 1970's and into the 1980's. not so much in the schools now. your thoughts about that? there used to be all the shop in horticulture and things like that taught in schools. not so much these days. caller: if we got the government out of college loans and gave the businesses incentives to train people in the job skills

that they need, our money would be better spent. we are not training people for the skills that industry needs. host: we have an e-mail from gw in seattle, washington. that is from dw in seattle. dennis on our lines for republicans in las vegas, nevada. what is killing jobs in america?

caller: the gentleman from florida, and even though i am not a democrat, i really agreed a little bit with what he says. i had an degree in business about eight years ago. after today, i graduated with a bachelor of science in nursing. i am a trade worker now. but i had to go back and get further education to get a new job. i think people need to find their niche before they go to college, get their education, and go from there. not everybody in america is meant to go to college. host: how long did it take you to realize that the degree you had would not give you a good job in you had to go back to get another degree? caller: i am not from the east coast and lehigh university is

not a well-known school. business is a dime a dozen. once i found out through nursing that that job security, i can hold it until i am 65, benefits, a good salary. i will have to work 20 years and business to reach $80,000 a year which i make right now. host: that is dennis in las vegas, nevada. mary is on a line for democrats. you are on the "washington journal." caller: in early 2000, did walmart join with china in a suit against the united states to ship in cheap electronics? and they put rca and zenith, i think it is, out of business.

but americans went to walmart and bought everything because it was cheaper. unthinking part of the problem is americans -- i am thinking part of the problem is americans. they do not want to pay for goods produced in the united states. they want what is cheapest for them. it is a cycle that will not stop. host: " would it take in your mind to get american goods produced at cheap enough rate to get americans to buy more american goods? caller: i do not know. i really don't. i think it has to do with, how do i put it, social responsibility instead of greed. host: this from the "new york times calls " this weekend.

jon huntsman was scheduled to be in the new york area for a fund- raiser. we want to remind our viewers and listeners that the "washington journal" will have its own will have their series coming up this week, tuesday through friday. eather series coming up

this week, to through friday. -- tuesday through friday. each of those segments will air on the "washington journal" from 9:15 a.m. eastern to the end of our program. dayton, maine, joseph online for independents. what is killing jobs in the u.s.? caller: there are a few points that never get brought up on the show. i think we have to start talking about the globalism business. it has ripped america apart. what globalism is using is a common -- communist work force. why doesn't anyone say it is wrong to use a communist work

force to replace the american workers? and we are still subsidizing the sending of jobs overseas. every time on your show, someone says we want to bring these jobs back, they say, well, you better get used to it, in a sarcastic manner. well, we're going to bring the jobs back because you have tapped during this period and you bring up this education thing. we're going to train the people to get the jobs. we have trained people in the united states. we can outwork anyone in this world. we can do it thoroughly into a better job of it. i voted for obama. you talk about a person who is discouraged about jobs. he is a global list. he answers to the global situation before the american people. he said we have to come up with a global solution for greek. everything with our congress is

global. they are it's destroying the united states because they are sending them to slaves. can you imagine the first black president endorsing slavery, dictatorships that destroy our jobs? you should have someone on there talking about globalism. host: we will leave it there. we want to let our viewers and listeners know that i frankfort, kentucky will be featured on book tv and american history television, as we showcase the history and literary culture of kentucky's state capital and the surrounding region. highlights on c-span3 include the story of the assassination of the kentucky governor, the only u.s. governor ever assassinated while in office, and john marshall harlan

possible rulings in civil-rights cases. on book tv on c-span2, henry clay and his family from the author of his family legacy. we will also visit poor richard's book store, a longtime fixture in downtown frankfurt. >> kentucky state university is one of eight regional universities in the commonwealth of kentucky. kentucky state university has a unique history among the eight. it was founded in 1886, and has the historic designation of being the only state-supported historically black college and university. it was founded originally as an

institution, a state normal school for colored persons, to teach and train students to become educators for students throughout the commonwealth. today it is a comprehensive four-year institution with several graduate programs. and it has the distinction of being the most perverse of the a comprehensive universities. -- diverse of the comprehensive universities. it is 25% white students, and about 17% students from other ethnic groups. host: frankfort, kentucky will be featured on the book tv and american history tv as we visit numerous locations showcasing the culture of the state capitol

and the surrounding region. you can see all of this on c- span2 and c-span3. you can go to our web sites for more details on this weekend programming. norman, okla., karen on our line for republicans, you are on the "washington journal." caller: i agree with some of the people that have called in saying all along the mindset of the american people. people used to work to go to college and they did better. they had two parents who would make sure that they did their work. now we have the mind-set of man who don't support their kids, women and disability and yet they can have nine kids, and they are not there except to take the taxpayers' money.

and on the pell grants, they get that money and go out and buy several cars. and then it wrecks. our education money is just wasted. i think that off to do a test on the pell grant. if they do not have a good grade point average, they need to be cut off. get a job if they are not going to try. and the unions, like obama saying he wants to have jobs, but what about the boeing plant that would have so many jobs, and he decided because of his union cronies that he was not going to let it happen. who deserves to make $60 an hour when you could pay three people $20 an hour and at least have taxes coming in? host: this is the lead editorial this morning in the "wall street journal."

but our last call for this segment comes from hartford, connecticut, lavern non-aligned for democrats. caller: all the jobs that you mentioned earlier, they were taken away from americans and they are still doing that. any job worth $30,000 a year, those jobs are going. i do not think that jobs are going to come back. the corporations, we are subsidizing them to take jobs from the united states and send them anywhere else in lead the world.

-- inland the world. -- in the world. take those monies back and give those to corporations that are willing to invest in this country. another thing -- this is not an accident that this is happening in the united states. these jobs have been going for 30 years. why people are surprised about it, i really do not know. host: we will leave it there. coming up in 45 minutes, a discussion on the fourth slot and the idea that the forces lead to greater federal spending. that is up in 45 minutes. but up next, look at the federal reserve's role in economic recovery and the speech given yesterday in jackson hole, wyoming by ben bernanke. you are watching the "washington journal." today is saturday, august 27. we will be right back.

♪ ♪ [than fair playing -- fanfare playing] ♪

>> paul jennings, an obscure people with little known stores. clarence lusane reveals two they were. >> i discovered fascinating individuals whose mark on the presidency and whose marks on the white house were virtually unknown. except for a few, scattered stories here and there, everyone kind of knew that george washington and thomas jefferson had slaves. most did not know that eight out

of a first well presidents had slaves. >> sunday night. >> two -- tour the newly reopened slave quarters at mount vernon this weekend. and historically accurate depiction of slave life in the 18th-century virginia. alexander butterfield talks about the secret taping system in the nixon white house. the civil war ended in a tremendous loss of life, but also advances in medicine. the life-saving lessons learned it during four years of bloody conflict. and we will visit frankfurt, ky. get the complete schedule at c- span.org/history. >> "washington journal" continues. host: scott lanman is with

bloomberg news and covers the federal reserve and other aspects of the economy. he will talk about the federal reserve chairman's assessment of the economy. guest: people were really hoping he would give some sign that the fed would do something to ease credit and add more stimulus and buy more assets. anything to get the economy going. he didn't give that signal. he said the economy would be good in the longer term. they are not announcing anything right now. they are considering their options. they added a second day to their policy meeting next month to discuss those kinds of things. and congress should get their fiscal act together and help the economy. that was it. host: the lead story in the "wall street journal" this

morning. they say that the fed chairman who left the door open to moves to help boost the sagging economy, but declined to say what they might do. people looking to the fed for guidance as to where the economy might be going, was the speech disappointing or open-ended? guest: it is hard to say. we watched the soft markets very closely to. -- the stock market's very closely. during the speech, they dipped a bit and then he came back up and ended up being up for the day, about 1.5% on the standard and poor's 500. perhaps it was a combination of optimism that the economy is still going to come back to some extent, and ben bernanke says he does expect things to get better in the second half.

and he is confident and optimistic for the u.s. economy in the longer term. in addition, even though he did not elaborate on those options in yesterday's speech, he did leave the door opened by saying that we do have tools to stimulate the economy and we are going to discuss them at our september meeting. that got people thinking that there could be something happening either in september or later this year. host: in your article, bernanke may use longer meeting to force consensus on easing, in his speech yesterday -- first question, how significant is it that they are adding a

second day to the september meeting? guest: it might sound like a procedural thing to have more time to talk about the economy and some of the tools. but in the past, adding a second day to the meeting has been associated with taking some kind of action. that is perhaps what has people thinking that they might do something. in december 2008, they were going to have a one-day meeting and extended it to today's, and then they took their historic actions to cut the benchmark of almost 0%, where it has now been for 2.5 years. the same thing a couple of months later. they expanded to two days, and chairman bernanke announced that the fed was greatly expanding its program of purchasing mortgage assets and buying $300 billion of treasuries. it does carry some of those

historic implications. he made no promises in his speech, but it is the kind that on balance gives them more time to talk about these things in the committee room here in washington. host: regarding the tools to boost growth, we have seen the implications of qe1 and qe2, and i will ask you to remind us what they are. is it a policy there there will be a qe3? guest: it is a possibility and he has discussed that in his congressional testimony a few weeks ago. it stands for quantitative easing. it is another euphemism for purchasing assets to add to the fed battles -- balance sheet. it is a way of lowering interest rates. the only reason to resort to that strategy is because they lowered the main rate to 0% back

in 2008. as long as anyone can remember, raising and lowering that rate is the main way that they stimulate or tightened and the economy. they do not have that tool to use any more. they resort to these kind of things. the first round was $1.7 million in mortgage assets in treasury for the second round that included just a few months ago, $600 billion in treasuries. there is no telling what the third round might bring. they do not necessarily have to do a third round. bernanke has outlined other options, like lowering another interest rate that they had, what they pay on bank deposits -- banks actually have $1.6 billion of money on deposit with the fed right now because it is in their reserve accounts. it is not money that is generally getting out into the economy.

that that actually pays banks 0.25% to hold that on the that possible. the fed can lower that interest rates closer to 0% to make it less attractive for banks to have that. that is another option. bacon also change the types of assets that -- they can also change the type of assets that they hold and diversify their portfolio, which would lower longer run borrowing costs in the economy host: we are talking with scott lanman of bloomberg news. he covers the economy, and we're talking about the federal reserve possible in the u.s. economy. give us a call. the numbers are on the screen. you can also send us messages

with e-mail, twitter, and on facebook. in the business and economy section of the "washington post" this morning. host: is it unusual for the fed chairman to point at either branch of government, either the administration or the congress, and say you sort of need to get your act together or the economy will go down the tank? guest: he has been issuing fairly strong warnings

throughout this whole year about the need for congress to figure out some sort of -- long-term now to reduce the deficit without harming the economy in the near term. these are clearly strong words aimed at either congress and/or the administration. he didn't get too specific on who was to blame. he's very careful about not saying that republicans or democrats are at fault. he was nominated by president george w. bush and then renominated by president obama. so he's using his perks as fed chairman to step up his warning to congress to get fiscal policy together. but he's really stayed away from getting really more in the weeds in terms of actually getting involved in the process for what can be done. he's very careful to stay out of

that because he's protective of the fed's role and trying to keep it free from political influences and pressure. host: our first call for scotlandman of -- scott lanman. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: yes. i want to make a statement here. i want to know, why are we relying on the opinion of those, c.e.o.'s for those investment firms that caused the country to go into the economic crisis that we're in right now? the people like the chairman, the treasury, the people that used to be head -- there was a c.e.o. of merrill lynch and all of these other investment firms. why are we relying -- the

gentleman you're just talking to right now, wasn't he part of merrill lynch on lehman brothers? these people caused this country to go into economic crisis back in 2008, and they're in government. we need to get these people out of the government because they ruined this country. they've caused businesses to good down and lose in the market, and investors globally stop wanting to invest in this country because they were burned. and therefore the companies that lost money, lost money during the wall street crisis, they took up their losses and went over to the other countries, third world countries, because they lost so much over here in this country during the wall street crisis. host: we're going to leave it there. don't know who she's referring to specifically.

there are some people in government who did work for some of these investment banks that were responsible or helped precipitate the financial crisis you could look at someone like tim geithner, the treasury secretary, who was head of the federal reserve bank of new york. and he's received his share of criticism. and the current president of the new york federal reserve, bill dudley, used to be the chief u.s. economist at goldman sachs. you know, there are people in government that work for these places -- worked for these places and our collective leaders have decided to keep certain people in place. and the american people can whether they want to keep those officials who were in those positions. host: next up, harrison, arkansas. you're on the line for "washington journal." caller: yeah. i'd just like to comment on the greatest stimulus package that

our government could put through, and that would to be get speculators out of the oil market and get oil back down to, you know, $30, $40 a barrel like it should be. 2008, oil was $147 a barrel and basically overnight it went to $30 a barrel. if that's not supply in demand, that's what we were told if oil was where it should be, each and every individual household would have more money in their pockets. small businesses would have more money, you know, to grow, to invest large corporations. host: scott lenman? guest: it's hard to say speculators out of the oil market would bring the price of oil down to $30, $40 a barrel. it's at either $80 or $100,

depending on what the source is and the price of oil depends on a lot of things besides just who's trading it in the market. you've got turmoil in the middle east right now. you have economies around the world such as china, india whose consumption of oil is increasing tremendously and is expected to increase much more in the future. the kinds of things that are also driving the price of oil, not just necessarily speculation. which is being investigated, i've heard. i think by congress or other agencies. host: in "the new york times" this morning, their lead editorial, mr. bernanke's warnings, washington needs to stop political antics and focus on housing and jobs. they write that the problem of the feds options easing credit by various means cannot by themselves turn things around. lower interest rate can help homeowners, but equity to

refinance, or strong businesses with -- small businesses with strong sales to borrow cheaply. but they do nothing for under water homeowners or businesses where sales are poor because of poultry consumer demand. your thoughts? guest: the fed does not have the power to put money into people's pockets to go out and spend. they've already taken action that have lowered, helped lower, mortgage rates to almost 4%, which are record lows. and yet a lot of people have refinanced their mortgages, and at the same time there are restrictions on credit. people need 20% down payments in order to either refinance or buy a new home. that's difficult for a lot of people to get. and mortgages are under water, as they say. that's the reason why people say even the feds' option that are left are probably not going to be that effective.

they don't have many big guns left for stimulating, that they're really willing to use at this point. federal reserve has kept the interest rate at or near zero for quite a while. how much longer can they do that? >> they've just announced a couple of weeks ago that they're likely to keep it there until at least the middle of 2013. so you're going on five years of near zero interest rates. they could leave it there even longer if economic conditions warrant if we're still at high unemployment in a couple of years, if growth is not getting to be stronger, then chairman bernanke could push out that date even farther. and then it might be up to his successor or someone else to raise interest rates. but, you know, that could be a long time. some people -- some economists

are pushing out their forecasts even farther than the 2013 date that bernanke gave. host: back to the phones and our conversation with scott lanman of bloomberg news. new york, new york. eye keel on our line -- michael on the line for independence. you're on "washington journal." caller: good morning. i wish there was some power to keep mr. bernanke away from the senate committees when he testifies. because every time he does, the market takes a nose-dive. you know, like a submarine that's going to hit the bottom of the ocean at full speed. another thing i don't like about his policy is this business of 0.0 loans that they give out when they pump out the money. this is nothing but a 19th century program initiated by the trade department then. it was called cheap money. now, china and india do import a lot of oil. but that's not the only reason gas is so high.

money has been devalued as a result of these no-interest cash that he's pumping out into the countries for these businesses or whatever they're doing. in new york, new york. he says that every time the fed tries to do something that stocks go down. but in the business section of this morning's "new york daily news" they say stocks are high on fed, that wall street rises on the hope that bernanke will take action. guest: that's a one-day reaction in the stock market. time will tell, of course, in the coming weeks whether the fed follows through on action whether the economy actually starts to improve. and that will be more important for the long-term health of the stock market than individual fed actions. you know, obviously the stock market concerns the fed and chairman bernanke because people

tending to spend less and when stocks are up, they feel they can spend more. host: next up, canyon city, colorado, on our line for republicans. steve, you're on "washington journal." caller: good morning, gentlemen. how are you doing this morning? guest: good. thank you. caller: just a couple of different things. for one, if people do their home work, we need to start -- north rate is unemployment 3.6%. people need to get in there and look and see why it's 3.6% for one thing. this monte easing that -- monetary easing that everybody is talking about, why don't we call it what it is. it's inflation. we're inflating the money and stealing from the american people. it's not doing us any good at all. all of these big jobs, anything over $250,000 has to go to unions which is b.s. if we want

to start getting this country back together, we have to get rid of the e.p.a. because they're stopping all of these jobs. i was talking to the painter the other day. said everything the e.p.a. is doing, he's going to be out of a job in three years because of all the restrictions and everything else they've been putting on. and everybody needs to start looking at it. it's not very good for this country. we're americans. we're not a european country. we need to stop this b.s. that people are doing. host: steve in canyon city, colorado. scott lanman. guest: he's right, the unemployment rate in north dakota is the lowest in the country. but if every state were small and then discovered a massive oil shell underneath and was able to extract it to create an economic boom, then we would be in great shape. but not every state can replicate the natural resources and conditions that north

dakota -- that converged on north dakota in recent years. talking about regulation, i'm not up on the details, but i think the obama administration has recognized the concern about some regulations. an order that was going to roll back or hold back some regulations in the last week or two. clearly republicans in congress, the chamber of commerce here in d.c., have been very active in making those issues well known. host: last week on "washington journal," steve forbes talked about his thoughts on quantitative easing and the strength of ben bernanke's handling of the monetary policy. take a look at what steve forbes had to say and then get some reaction from scott lanman of bloomberg news. >> i'm look forward to, i hope, minimal damage. it was a year ago that the chairman announced what they call qe-2, quantitative easing

two, and it ended up doing the economy more harm than good. there's plenty of liquidity in the financial system. we just got to remove the headwinds, the barriers that just stand in the way of creating an environment where this money is productively put to work. so in terms of jackson hole, i hope he doesn't hint at a qe-3 or some other kind of a scheme that hurts the dollar. if he announced tomorrow that he was going to do as john kennedy said 50 years ago, make the dollar as good as gold, you'll see the dow jones and the markets go up 2,000 points. but i'm afraid he's going to go in the opposite direction. that's why they call him helicopter ben, which bernanke once said if all else fails, you go up in a helicopter and throw money out of it. so i hope helicopter ben does not give us another helicopter run. host: scott, your thoughts about the chairman and helicopters?

guest: that's based on a speech that bernanke gave in 2002 where was actually echoing a line known to the well-known economist, that you could drop money from a helicopter to eliminate the threat of deflation. essentially in some ways that's what bernanke has tried to do. he said they did face the threat of deflation a year ago, and that was a major reason why they did do the qe-2 program, spend $600 billion buying treasuries. but at the same time, there are concerns, like mr. forbes said, about the level of the dollar versus other currencyies, about the risks of further inflation down the line. you can hear some of those things from countries around the world, especially china, brazil, germany. they've all criticized the fed's qe-2 program. of course, the fed would say in their own interest, to keep

their currencies weaker against the dollar rather than stronger. but those are concerns. and mr. bernanke has heard those. and they're inside the fed as well as outside the fed. host: oxnard, california. our line for democrats. you're on the "washington journal" with scott lanman of bloomberg news. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you. mr. bernanke and mr. greenspan mr. volcker, all of these fed chairmen, they use that money as a political tool. because instead of lending money at these ridiculously low rates, they should make those people that have the money borrow from each other. and they should stipulate when they lend out this money that if you're not going to use this money to create jobs in this country, to create and manufacturer things that people need to use, not toys, not

games, things that people need, help the average citizen to be able to borrow money at a reasonable interest rate. you got people borrowing money, the average man borrowing money at 18%, 19%. they can't even pay it. they get a credit card and never pay it off. you have the republicans who want to blame everything on obama. obama doesn't have the money. he doesn't control the money. he was elected to preside over this country, and he's trying to do the best he can. but you have people that would have slavery where you would have to pay anyone, anything instead of a livable wage and being fair. host: we'll leave it there. scott lanman? guest: the fed doesn't have the legal power to put those kinds of terms and conditions on the loan that it makes. if congress wants to pass a law like that and change the way the fed operates in how loans are

given out that would be within congress' power to do that. host: neal irwin wrote wednesday, in hindsight last year jackson hole speech by bernanke looked like a step towards the qe-2 program. but at that time it was viewed more tentatively. he wasn't pledging to undertake a program, merely saying that the fed was willing to do so if the economic data justified it. so what's the difference between where we are now and where we were a year ago? and in that time, how would you assess the performance of this? guest: a year ago -- well, actually, at the jackson hole event a year ago, when you compare and contrast the speeches that bernanke gave, last year's did contain much more detail on the kinds of options that the fed has and tool that they could use. he listed the asset purchases as the main option which got people

thinking of that. even though he didn't guarantee they would be used. and it wasn't until november that that would happen that they actually approved the program. what's different is that the inflation picture is very different from between now and a year ago. they watch measures of inflation, expectations in the market. they saw that there's a risk of deflation in the economy. to central bankers, they view that as an extremely dangerous, pernicious effect. that means that people -- that would be very bad for homeowners. especially people who have, say, if you have a $300,000 mortgage, and there's deflation, then that essentially grows big eastern bigger -- bigger and bigger and you're not able to pay it off so the fed in a way, wanted to create inflation. and they that through the qe-2 program. now that the inflation is back

to a level that the fed seems to be more in line with its long-run goals, they're more reluctant to use the tool because it's clear to a lot of people that that could risk even faster inflation which the fed regards as dangerous. they don't want it to be too low, but they don't want it to be too high either. host: scott lanman graduated from the university of pennsylvania with a bachelor's in political science. he joined bloomberg full-time in 1999 and writes about the federal reserve and the u.s. economy for bloomberg news and washington and has done so since 2005. in charlotte, north carolina, our next caller is patrick on our line for republicans. patrick, you're on the "washington journal." caller: good morning. yes, steve forbes made a very succinct statement. and he's exactly right. we know the tricks that the federal reserve is up to, in their toolbox. my thing about inflation, we

know inflation is going on out there in real america. you know, crisis of lumber, hardware, your grocery store and so forth. but what i want in particular is -- so what if we have a little deflation? so what if the dollar is strengthened? and now people go to work. they're more apt to save and put money in the bank. think about putting money in the bank today. you're getting a negative return on your principle. so you really -- you know, that's for each and every american by the hands of the federal chairman. he knows we're getting a negative return rate on our savings. and yet he's on this, you know, dropping more and more money into the economy. and like steve forbes says, helicopter ben. print more money.

host: patrick in charlotte. guest: again, if the economy were to slip into deflation if chairman bernanke has made it his life cause, almost, to make sure that deflation doesn't happen in the u.s. in fact, that was the name of his 2002 speech where he talked about dropping money from the helicopter, making sure it doesn't happen here i think that was title. i could be mistaken. it might have been another speech. but in any case, chairman bernanke studied the great depression very closely, very in-depth as a scholar at princeton university, before he joined the fed. he believes that central bankers were, in part to blame for the great depression. they allowed deflation to continue which really exacerbated the depression. and people i talk to say if anybody's going to make sure that the united states does not have severe deflation, does not

have depression, it's going to be ben bernanke. that's why he's still talking about these options even though he's facing criticism and there's many doubts over how effective the rest of their tool kit can be. >> what's the difference between deflation and a recession? >> recession refers to a broader contraction in economic growth in john growth, and -- in manufacturing. it's something broad area cross the economy. deflation is more specifically prices. when prices suffer a sustained decline. obviously maybe things would be less expensive. but in addition, deflation doesn't just affect the prices at the grocery store and the gas pump. it's also in people's wages. in deflation, wages also declined in addition to just, say, commodity prices. host: jack on our line for

independence, wilmington, north carolina. go ahead. jack? all right. let's move on to washington on our line for republicans. you're on "washington journal." caller: good morning. a quick comment to make. but i'd like to ask you first, rob, is c-span a public company? are there investors in c-span? host: c-span is made possible by the folks in the cable and satellite industry. if you want more information on that, you can find it on our website. caller: i'm fully aware of that, i've been watching "washington journal" every morning. but i was curious if there were people making decisions, corporate decisions at c-span, as far as programming or any of that. host: i really can't comment on how the decisions are made here. we want to try to continue our conversation regarding the fed. caller: rob, i didn't want to make my point just that. i just wanted to use that to explain my point, that all these

bankers internationally and here in the united states are in corporations -- [no audio] host: we seemed to have lost reed. let's go to patrick on our line for democrats in colorado springs. go ahead. caller: yes. i want to comment that in washington, i don't believe they're listening to the people. i don't know who they're listening to. i think the decision that they're making, i don't think the people would approve of it if they could voice their own opinion. the question i wanted to ask is, why these people up in washington are acting like children, anyway, and not listening to the people. i don't think our economy would fall into this category if the people had a say. host: we'll leave it there. in this morning's "washington "n journal," bernanke gets good review.

it says investors initially interpreted mr. bernanke's remarks negatively, especially since the fed chief stopped short of announcing fresh monetary stimulus, but the market eventually found comfort that mr. bernanke signaled he's ready to provide further support to a persistently weak economy. those that operate on wall street, what it that they're listening tore from the -- for from the chairman and are they hearing? listening for a sign, code words, whatever it might be that the fed is about to add more joyce to the economy. you know, that money tends -- that tends to affect how stock investors behave. if the fed were to, say, find more treasuries in a way that pushes investors -- it's supposed to push more investors into the stock market.

so that would be the kind of thing that they're listening for so that there wasn't a clear signal in the speech that that was happening. but he didn't shut the door by any means. so it took a few minutes in the morning to sort that out. host: next up, st. louis, missouri. andy on our line for democrats. you're on "washington journal." caller: hello? host: andy? caller: hi. it's randy. host: randy, go ahead. caller: yeah. i was talking to a neighbor of mine who's an older man. and he was telling me that years ago companies were prohibited from moving their operations across the border, over to china, you know, for cheap labor i was wondering, do you know anything about that? was that the policy years ago? and the other thing is, i never

hear anybody talking about -- you know, you try to do something about the unemployment. but i never even hear anybody talk about we can't even keep the jobs that we've got here in this country. it was on "60 minutes" some time ago this past year about how an area up in iowa, made appliances, they just moved their whole operation down to mexico. all of these people lost their jobs. we can't even keep the jobs we've got. i never even hear anybody talk about that. host: randy in st. louis, missouri. anything that the fed is suggesting or that the fed can do to help keep jobs here in the united states? guest: keeping jobs in the united states is not the province of the fed. the fed controls or tries to control the level of interest rates, of borrowing costs for corporations, consumers, small businesses. you know, chairman bernanke can go out and state his opinion on

what the policy can be. in general, economists at the fed and academic community tend to support more free trade open, which would allow companies to relocate jobs where they would like. i don't know the details on the historic changes in whatever policy it might be over the years. but yet companies do try to locate labor costs where they might be less expensive so they can increase their profit for shareholders. host: penelope, san antonio, texas. on "washington journal." caller: thank you. i enjoy listening to you. i just hear so many people saying that it's the greed of the bankers that caused all of these problems. but did they not kind of freeze the bankers out of actual mortgage lending like fannie mae and freddie mac and insisting that they loan to people with

less and less and less real credibility? the bankers did what they could to make money after they had been forced out of the actual mortgage lending themselves. host: scott lenman? guest: i don't know that banks were frozen out of mortgage lending by fannie and freddie, but the reality is that lending conditions are tighter now than they were during the housing boom of the last decade. that's why it's more difficult for even borrowers who think they're qualified to get a loan. the financial crisis well documented the causes and the effects of it. there's a well-known book in academic circles right now called "this time is different." it's a history of financial crises by carmen wrighthart, a

esteemed economist. in addition with her husband, vince. they write that it takes a very long time for economies to fully recover after severe financial crises. and this may have been a severe enough financial crisis that it could take as long as a decade to really recover to full employment. this plan a ben bernanke's to keep the rate at or near 0%, with that forced banks and other lending institutions to lower their interest rates so that people with legitimate credit ratings can get into home ownership and perhaps a build up the economy that way? guest: they can lower their interest rates. the question is -- it does and it should get their rates to be lowered, but do they dan ease

the other lending standards -- you need a certain credit score or down payment, you have to deal with the appraisers of the property, a lot of foreclosures and the system -- in late this system that are reducing home prices and making it difficult for people to get mortgages in some cases. the fed can change as one leiber and reduce interest rates, but even -- this one lever and reduce interest rates, but there is a question of how much more they could do that could spur those kinds of loans and get more people -- that money into people's pockets. host: our last call for studentcam a bloomberg news comes to -- scott lanman of bloomberg news.

caller: i would also like to echo what you and some of the other callers have said. there is a not what the fed can do except for control the interest rates and money and on fortunately the money is not circulating. money is being aggravated -- aggregated at the top. unfortunately, big business is not addictive to low wages and globalization there is an incredible amount of money being extracted from the economy and transferred out of this country, not for the american people. i do not see a real answer for this unless we adopt some kind of protectionist policies and start putting tariffs on corporations moving jobs and the means of and come earning for the past majority of the american people back to this country. host: go ahead.

guest: the fed has limited power to change those kinds of things. they can affect the money supply and interest rates. but in terms of the industrial policies, trade policies, global job shifts, those of a kind of things that congress has to deal with, fiscal policy, etc. perhaps there will be an increasing debate over that in the next year as the presidential election season comes up. host: scott lanman of bloomberg news, thank you for being on the "washington journal." in 45 minutes, a discussion of marches on washington. but coming up, and bank laws and federal policy. today is august 27. we will be right back.

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>> notice the color of the bourbon. that pretty amber color is all coming from the char on the inside of the barrel. this char is where bourbon it's all of its collar and a lot of its flavor. currently they have discovered over 200 chemical flavors just char of theank and the barrel. >> we highlight frankfurt, kentucky on book tv and american history to be. look for the history and literary life of the state capital. on book tv, corruption and urban renewal. kent masterson brown on the life of a ninth u.s. calvary soldier.

when history tv, a visit to buffalo trace distillery, one of four fallout operate during prohibition. stop by the third state capital. " history -- book tv and american history tv on frankfort, ky. >> for politics and public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history, it is the c- span networks. it is all available to you on television, radio, and online -- and on social media sites. search, watch, and share all of our programs anytime with c- span's video library. we're on the road with our c- span digital bus and local content vehicles, bringing our resources to local communities and showing events from around the country. it is washington your way. the c-span networks -- created by cable, provided as a public service.

>> watch more video of the candidates, political reporters are saying, and track campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012. it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feed and facebook updates from the campaigns. links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states, all at c-span.org /2012. >> "washington journal" continues. host: for the next 45 minutes, we will talk about divorce l aws and federal policy. what has been the impact on divorce of federal policy? particularly, with regard to states that do or do not have no fault divorce laws?

guest: allstate said unilateral divorce in one way or the other. -- all states have the unilateral divorce laws in one way or the other. they mostly due divorce or a family law problems. state courts -- there are other social costs that come from moving to one-parent families, but what it really does is, everyone who gets married or has children one way or the other is entering a lottery where they could have the divorce from hell, they could have children but not any role in the children's lives, they did in of emotionally and financially ruined by divorce, and you never know who it is going to be. it takes two people to have the

good divorce. we have not figured out ways to get that good divorce from most people. my work is a divorce lawyer, being involved in heartbreaking cases, trying to improve divorce, i decided we should go extreme and work on preventing a lot of the divorces. we should see if we can more effective in reducing the damage through prevention men by patching people up. host: nelson garcia is also weighing divorce lawyer. what is the role of federal government in divorce? guest: wherever it can, it should streamline things as well as possible. encourage states to pass laws that protect people in the

emotional, difficult process of divorce. i think that the laws have developed to the point they have to wear the courts, the party is at the end of their marriage, they aren't as good a financial position as possible. they certainly make it easier for them to also enjoy their children and be able to provide for them. host: john crouch, you are with a group called coalition for divorce reform. what makes up the divorce reform movement and what is the goal for your coalition? guest: it is people that have experienced divorce in their personal life and people like me who experience it through their work. we've decided to look at how to

do prevention. people did not know a lot about how divorce and marriages work at the time that we passed no- fault and dealt with the unexpected consequences over the past few decades. for the past 15 years, a lot of people in the helping professions had been moving toward trying to change marital therapy said that actually -- so it focuses on a marriage therapy. for those who do not need therapy, people can be taught skills like health education, a lot of skills that people can learn to work on their marriages before it is too late. a lot of the policies of intervention that we have been offering people aren't too little, too late. they are after one person has decided that divorce is over. you cannot stop the genie back

into the bottle. we're looking at policies to move back to before people make that decision. the coalition for divorce reform is proposing not a federal, but a state law in various states that would require divorce education, and a little marriage education, in place of the waiting period that a lot of states have. instead of a wedding period, it forces people to separate and then wait, not europe which is good to save the marriage, it is a requirement that find -- filed notice after which they would go to divorce education and marriage education and find more resources to work on the marriage. host: this marriage education that you're talking about, and not to belittle it, but it would be like driver education, in

that you could not get a driver's license and move on with that process unless you get a license for the course? would people be prevented to get marriages unless they had the marriage education and got a certificate from the state? guest: that might be a good idea, requiring some sort of education in some cases. they are states to give incentives for that. but this would be for divorce, in every case except domestic violence. people would have to go through this step before divorce. it is not any longer than vote waiting period that states already have, but it would focus on educating them about what they are getting into. host: nelson garcia, what is been year results and how you

see them changing how of force works in the u.s.? -- howl divorce works in the u.s.? guest: forcing people to engage in counseling, that is a difficult thing to understand. our court system right now is substantially clogged up. mainly with family law cases, which comprise 60% to 80% or more of the caseload of courts. when a case gets to court, their incentive is to move it along as quickly as possible. what i find in my experiences that people who are interested in marriage counseling, that sort of thing, do that before they come to see me and john. that is the best way that that will happen, when it is voluntary. i can tell you that there are many times when people come to

me and say, they have gone through therapy and it has not worked, or they are very much for it, but the other side does not want to do it. they have decided the marriage is over and they will not cooperate. the court has a lot of power and make an order you to do a lot of things. bake in order you to go through marriage counseling, but they cannot or do you to try or put forth a good faith there -- good faith effort. it is like ordering a teenager to go to a school that they do not want to. cannot order the teenager to pay attention, to try, to do their homework -- and that is the same roadblock you'll run into here. when the court systems are so clogged up, that presents a tremendous challenge to go through another hoop in order to get a divorce. guest: this is not forcing

everyone to successfully treat counseling, but to offer people some knowledge about what is out there as far as skills and education that they could use. it will not save all of the marriages. but this could save a lot of marriages and could also make people who are all going to divorce be better marriage partners in their next marriage. host: we're talking about divorce law and federal policies with john crouch with the coalition for divorce reform, and nelson garcia, who is with a maryland-based law firm. if you like to get involved with the conversation, give us a call. the telephone numbers are on the screen.

you can send this message is by e-mail and twitter. first call from camden, maine. linda on our line for democrats, you are on the "washington journal." caller: having been married and divorced, i find it disconcerting because anytime you put education in place for something, you tend to talk about the ideal. there are so many different reasons why marriages and. i do not have a problem with people voluntarily doing marriage encounter are going to the other process. if you're catholic, there is a pre-marriage thing. you're talking about relationships, and if you do not have skills and relationship, and your marriage will not be as successful. i do not think the government or anybody else can realistically

assist people with this. i applaud the effort, but i am concerned when we talk at this level about legal requirements to get married beyond what we usually have, in terms of how people will be a pyrrhic people behave very differently after they are married. if you are married, you would know that. guest: there is marriage education for the premarital situation. what is in this proposal is divorce education for people on the brink of a divorce. it includes information about a lot of resources for divorce, and marriage resources. marriage preparation has improved a lot in the last 20 years. they are working on getting more realistic about how people actually operate in their

relationships. there are a lot of improvements that people are not aware of. as for government involvement, once you get into divorce, all the sudden the government is very involved in your marriage. it seems to control every aspect of your life, as a parent in the custody case. but before you get into divorce court, there is really nothing that people can do to get their spouses to be a, to do something to save the marriage. host: pine hill, new jersey, christopher on our line for republicans. you are on the "washington journal." caller: i have been through the wringer as a divorced man. but that your panelists are so out of touch. and this amazes me.

divorced man, how about father'' rights? how about men's rights? host: give me an example, christopher. caller: they are infested with feminist lot of politicians. the same as what the family courts, especially new jersey. i do not know a man alive who has not been sodomized by family court judge. host: we will leave it there. to the courts tended to favor the rights of the mother over the father? is there a way to balance that out? guest: it is a sensitive issue. my colleague wrote a book on father's rights. we pride ourselves in trying to fight for the plotters rights just as much as mothers. father's rights as much as the mothers.

nowadays, with equal rights and women being so strong in the work force, most of them to work full time. you have situations where it is the man who is at the home, who is caring and does most of the things at home. you have a lot of wives working even more hours than men, and judges are very sensitive to that. i have seen that they do care more about that. and there are times when men do get primary custody of the children. versus the mother. the judges will tell you, no, there is no presumption here for the mother. you do run into those situations, of course, where if the children -- if the judge sees that the mother has been the primary caretaker, they will bend over backwards to accommodate that situation. but they are becoming more

prevalent where the man has that superior role, and i find that judges are sensitive to that situation, a lot more than they were even 10 years ago. host: going to the phones. dallas, texas. caller: i think the courts are putting blame on this person of that person, and the personal aspect, but as far as the family divorce or marriage license has a compact, they impose a document that you fill out when you apply for your marriage license, saying, yes, yes i will agree to splitting up our assets at the end of this contract, i like that clause, for the end of the contract that says this is

what will happen to our assets. decide thatose not to beforehand and we split everything 50/50. guest: we have a very strong culture of freedom of contract in this company -- country. many in this area at want to have a contract that would have limits on someone just leaving the marriage for no reason or what have consequences for adultery. that is very hard to do. most dates do not hold -- day of all prenups, but not -- they of prenups, but not those kinds of contracts. we let that child is a long-term

enterprise. even building a house involves a lot of contracts that require people to do things over a long amount of time. in family law, you really cannot do that anymore. things like waiting periods and education requirements are what we're trying to do instead, where people are not able to protect their marriages and their investment in their families through free contract ing. instead the government needs to provide some information to people as they go through the process. host: ottawa, tim on our line for republicans, you are on the "washington journal." caller: with the amount of government interference in our lives already, now you're talking about a state certificate to get married?

in some cases, which. also, forcing a process to get divorced? that is more bureaucracy and more getting into our personal lives that the government has no business and. guest: once you get into a divorce and you will have a lot of cover man in your personal life. a judge can really control a lot of the things in your life all the way into your kids are 18. -- until your kids are 18. i certainly understand feeling threatened and violated by the government. the law lot more of the people i deal with in family law are more like the caller before last, who felt that he felt sodomized by

how the judge treated him. that caller was not out of line. that is what most men and women feel about the divorce process. that is unfortunately on soluble -- insoluble. if you make things better for the fathers, it is worse for the mothers, and vice versa. i focus on prevention instead of trying to make divorce work for everybody. although i am trying to improve divorce with nelson. there is a lot of hearings to explore with prevention in trying to strengthen and improve marriages. host: austin, texas on our line for independents. caller: on the counseling

situation, your panelists have been focused toward counseling to repair the marriage. a lot of times, a divorce is preset. there is a fault, and the coming together of a couple. counseling going out into the divorce period would be more productive to help the ex- spouses come together for the children. your topic is on federal policy related to divorce. my comment on that is why we cannot get a tax deduction or a recognition on our taxes for child support? that is a big problem in america. men or women being able to pay their child support and economic restraint there. if we can get a deductibility,

the child has a deduction for the primary possessor, but no resignation in our tax code for paying that child support. -- no recognition in our tax code for pain that child support. that would help people comply with child support payment. guest: the irs does not allow a deduction for alimony where it is stated to be taxable. it can be deducted. when you get into child support, and specifically deducting child support, you have to think about, well, who will be taxed? you cannot talk about deductions without talking about taxes. in alimony, when it is deducted, the recipient of the alimony paid taxes. that child support is determined

by the child support guidelines for is essentially the needs of the parties. if it is not deductible, it will also be taxable. so the recipient is going to receive what it is that the needs are. so you get into a quagmire. if we allow this child-support to be deducted, how are we going to grow set up so that we give the recipient a reasonable amount of that meets the child's needs? it is all about the best interest of the children. courts are particularly concerned that the reasonable cost regarding the children are met. when you introduce a deduction portion, and now they are not going to get that. so you left to account for this other thing. states have decided to make it -- leave it alone. everyone agrees that it is a

reasonable amount. if someone believes it is not reasonable, you can appeal your case. appeals courts are very sensitive to that. but the bottom line is that is the dilemma you have. host: these are marriage and divorce statistics for 2009. there were 2.1 million marriages in the united states. the marriage rate was at 6.8 per 1000 people. the divorce rate was just about half of that. this is 44 states reporting for the national center for health statistics. james is on the line for republicans. caller: my statement is that the federal government has no business in divorce or marriage.

that is a constitutional issue left to the states. they already have their nose under the tent with child- support. what is left? in thatt's also throw according to an article in the "washington times" on august 15, they write that the average split costs a couple $27. a new single parent families with children can cost the government $30,000 a year. that is $33 billion to $112 billion a year total in divorce- related social service subsidies and lost revenues. john crouch, in terms of what the caller was saying about keeping the government out of our personal lives, it seems

divorce can cause the government up to wonder $12 billion -- up to $112 billion at a time when congress is looking to reduce the cost of government. where does that leave divorced couples and their children? guest: $2,500 is a misleading number. beware of averages. some people have no property, kids, or custody issues. they may get divorced for $1,500. there are a lot of other people who are going to pay tens of thousands and sometimes into the six figures for their divorce. you never know. i work a lot with international divorces. people of the kids to foreign countries. there are savage things happening to people in international cases and

domestically. -- people abduct kids to foreign countries. it is not just with the averages, is what everybody is exposed to. one thing where there is a federal role is in welfare reform. in 1996, we change welfare so that the rolls were cut. part of the grand bargain was that the money saved was not going to be used for fat cat taxes and would be used for property prevention programs. one of those was marriage education. in 1996, the clinton administration have that as part of the mix of what the saved money should be spent on. in the clinton administration and bush administration, there were a lot of federal grants going to these marriage education programs to try to reach out to people who were not

being served by them but needed marriage skills and healthy relationship skills. that has been a federal world. there is not so much of it now because there's not the extra money to go around. that is where a lot of the ideas and creativity about how to do these programs can serve white populations -- wide populations came from. caller: i want to talk about my divorce and how bad it went. i got child-support and alemannic -- alimony payment on top of it. i lost my job. i make $10 an hour. i am been tarnished its 65% of all of my income. i am $97,000 behind in my child support/alimony. how will i ever be able to pay this off?

i want some advice. host: bruce from wayne, mich., let's add this tweet to this. what is your response, nelson garcia? guest: you need to file a motion to modify. if you cannot do that, you have a problem. your ex does the the cause of action against you for contempt and non-payment. the defense to content is the inability to pay. if you do have modifiable alimony, filed a motion right away to get reduced. -- file a motion right away to get it reduced.

the judge and courts cannot pursue in the poorhouse -- put you in the poorhouse. they have to look at various factors in setting alimony. the two most important ones are the need of the dependent spouse and the ability to pay. that is along with things like standard of living and duration of the marriage. they are very careful to balance those things. i hope he can succeed with a modification of the alimony. host: in cases like this, if the spouse legitimately cannot make the child support payments and until they get the situation resolved in the court, do the kids in the upon some sort of assistance for the most part?

does the custodial spouse in up having to go to the government for some kind of public assistance until they can get the child support situation resolved? guest: it depends. child-support is always modifiable, and like alimony. -- tells supporters always modifiable, unlike alimony. in situations where the government house to become involved, -- has to become involved, children may have to become wards of the state. that is where states are careful to have the party involved paid a fair share for the needs of the children. when it comes to alimony, the needs of the ex-wife. to the extent that they become -- go below the poverty level because a father or ex-husband

stops paying child support for whatever reason, that is a really serious issue in our society. our laws are intended to prevent that sort of thing. they require parties to provide for the children within reasonable means. host: gov. ronald reagan from the first no-fault divorce law in the united states in california 42 years ago. now just about every state in the union has some sort of no- fault divorce law. is it good or bad that you can have these laws where couples say nobody is at fault and it is done in a day? caller: if it is a couple, that is fine. but these decisions are usually not made by couples, they are

made by individuals within a couple. our divorce laws do not pay attention to the dynamics of how people make decisions. it is funny that the law signed by gov. reagan, the effort to pass it was lodged by his predecessor, gov. pat brown. in the early 1960's, he wants the commission -- launched a commission that was going to try to roll back the unprecedented of divorce they thought they had at the time. what they proposed was to have conciliation courts. before people would even go to divorce court, they go to judges and counselors connected to the court that can help them work out their problems before it gets to the point of divorce. there were programs like that.

initially, the idea was to replicate those all over the state and country. what happened instead is they ended up with the no-fault part and dropped all of the therapeutic parts because they cost money. when it got out of the legislative meat grinder, all is said was that divorce is even easier to start than before but even harder to stop. we have lost that history of what no-fault is really supposed to be about. they thought there would be judges making individualized decisions about whether the marriage was really irreconcilable and offering people all kinds of help. that did not happen. they still had to have the therapeutic court system for all of the other problems that cannot divorce later on. but it does not help people trying to keep their marriages together. host: a family court judge said

it is easier to force my wife of 27 years than to fire someone i hired one week ago. red has more hi legal clout than the person i married 27 years ago. guest: the laws were instituted by states to provide parties who believe their marriage has ended with a path to the bourse -- to divorce. before these no-fault laws were implemented, it was difficult to tie the end of a marriage with in the particular fault ground. this was promulgated to provide a catchall for that and allow people who have decided that the marriages over -- marriage is

over to have a way of getting divorced. that is what these no-fault laws do. it is not really true to say that no-fault divorces result in an easier divorce. divorce based on a no-fault ground can be just as lengthy and costly as one based on a fault ground. you still have to go through the litigation process. you have to go through discovery. is just as costly and lengthy. to a certain extent, it reduces the emotionalism because you do not have to prove fault. a lot of people with fault decide they're not going to go the route because it is too hard on them and the children to put them through that. no-fault gives them an

opportunity to take just a few minutes to end that segment of the case. host: barbara is on the line for democrats. caller: i am going through a divorce. i have been 42 years. i was married 42 years. -- i am going through divorce and have been for two years. i was married 42 years. when does this end? is there a thing for ending this divorce over a certain amount of time? host: john crouch? guest: that is highly is experienced for a lot of people. -- that is how it is experienced for a lot of people. the legal process can take a

couple of years. the emotional process takes longer. there is a divorce lawyer from boston who wrote a book about the myth of divorce. she said in divorce after a long marriage, people will stay in meshed for leased to the years after the initial shock of the has been cheating or announcing he wants a divorce. if you get them into the process of litigation and negotiation to early, it will be a horrible divorce. they will not be able to let go of the conflict. that is one of the things i looked at in proposing the two- year waiting period. people need time to emotionally of just before they can be rational about how to approach the divorce and get it over with.

host: daniel on the line for independents from pennsylvania. caller: you have talked a lot about the interest of the government in marriage, why it got involved and why certain policies were instituted. who was originally advocating for no-fault divorces? was it husbands who want to talk about of marriages? was it more of the feminist issue? who was really advocating for no-fault divorce in originally? guest: there were a variety of courgroups, including the court system. the judges saw that the system was so clogged up by only having full divorces. it was creating a problem.

if you have to litigate every single allegation of fault, just imagine. cases are quite a bit longer and more complex. the court system is tremendously clogged up right now. if you have to litigate every single allegation of infidelity or abuse, the whole system would explode. the system tepushed for this to ease the strain on the court system, to make it simple for people to go this way because it is easier on them and the courts. it is emotionally easier on everybody with less stress on fault by the courts.

d.c. and maryland are different. the courts do not place as much emphasis on fault in some states. they tried to get away from that. they tried to get people to come to some sort of agreement. the thinking now on the part of the court is to have people in their marriages -- end their marriages on as good of a financial footing as they can. it is not good when they are sharing a custody arrangement where the men feel raped by the court system. it is not good for them afterwards. these parties have to deal with each other for years later. it is usually better to put them on that economic footing

and try to get away from fault. host: nelson garcia and john crouch, thank you for being on the program today. in a few minutes, we will be talking with the author of "marching on washington: the forging of american political tradition." we will be right back after this break. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> obscure people with little known stories.

the professor reveals who they were as well as many other black men and women who left their imprint forever on the white house. >> i began to discover fascinating individuals whose mark on the presidency and the white house were virtually unknown, except for a few scattered stories here and there. everyone kind of knew that thomas jefferson had slaves, but most people probably did not know that eight out of the first 10 presidents have slaves. >> that is on sunday night. ♪

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media partners in the early primary and caucus states. host: lucy barber is the author of "marching on washington." talk to us about the history of whathes on washington and h kind of effect they have had on american politics. guest: it is interesting. today we think of them as a traditional or normal part of politics. in the beginning, they were seen as outside of anything considered acceptable in terms of national politics. people had protests but cannot take them to the federal government until the 1890's.

you see how american people acting in their own organizations start to have a role in pushing their agenda is in to the federal conversation. it does not always mean they get exactly what they want that day, very rarely. considerable to attention to the causes and the people that support them. that can be part of a strategy of a larger social movement that may culminate in getting passage of what you need. host: the first major march in washington that you wrote about was the march around 1890. they were marching to get recognition of what? guest: they had a far-reaching scheme to get more money into the hands of the unemployed.

they wanted the government to print more money that would go towards paying for good roads and community facilities. people would be hired to build these at really high wages. host: how did that work out? it seems that we're in a similar situation. [laughter] guest: i was thinking about that as i was looking back over cox's army. it was a third party attempt to change the way the money situation was, to have such high-level federal involvement in what was known as "relief. " it was unprecedented. that was pretty much done at the local or state level. cox was a weird guy. he was a businessman from ohio who had gotten very involved in third-party politics, what was then the populist party.

host: why did he think a march on washington with the effect some sort of change? guest: he tried traditional things first. he started a newspaper. he hoped up with a program -- carl brown on the west coast. brown was much more a man of the streets. he really believed in political demonstration. he had been involved in political programs. he convinced cox that a march was the way to go. they walked from ohio all the way to washington. other groups joined in and inspired. they had daily coverage from the newspapers.

just walking in it that their cause got more attention. congress was full of debates about what would happen when they got here. >> we are showing our viewers an example of some of the coverage that the march on washington got. after that, what was the next major whamarch on washington? guest: the next one that got a lot of attention was the suffrage march. suffragettes had been watching their colleagues in britain use public demonstrations. in 1913, they organized what we call it more of a parade to go from the capital down to the white house. it was more like a march because of how much debate there was about whether it was right for

women to use public spaces that way. the fact that it generated all of this debate, people had parades' of the time. to have a parade that had the political message that women should vote in 1913 was pretty controversial. they had to pull in a lot of favors just to get the permits to do it. host: we're talking about the history of marches on washington with losing barber -- lucy barber. if you like to get involved in the conversation, we have numbers for republicans, democrats, and independents. you can also get in touch with us electronically by e-mail or twitter. if you have ever been involved in a march on washington, give us a call and let us know what your experience was and how you

think it may or may not have changed the political climate in washington, d.c. what is the basic message you want to get across in the book? guest: there was a long struggle to get them accepted. when they were accepted, in some ways it enshrined a particular kind of march on washington as what people expected to happen. organizers, the government, and participants came to see that as the pinnacle of what would be a good march on washington. generally, people tried to appear to something like that. they can always make the drama and real, personal sense of movement in 1963 had for some

people -- they can always make the same drama and personal sense of movement in 1963 had for some people, but it is part of what people do. kennedy said it was part of the great tradition of american politics. nobody tried to apologize for it. at other times, there was a sense of "we're not trying to construccause trouble, we just o do this." i think it added to the power that american citizens have. host: this is an op-ed from the abortion to. -- this is an op-ed from the "washington post." he says the march did not ignite an arab spring in america in which a majority of white southerners want revolutionary waves and strikes.

your thoughts about that? guest: i think that is right. it was not any kind of instant success. we forget that in september of 1953, the bombing of the church in birmingham happened. four young children died. there was not some instant change. but it gave a reference point back to people that all of these people had gathered of both colors together. the "i have a dream" speech was not unique to washington. he had delivered variations on

it before. because of the amount of coverage, all the networks broadcasting it, repeated references back, it became a from a verysonthem different voice than ever before. host: our first call comes from massachusetts, tommy on the line for independents. caller: i think marching on washington is a great american tradition. ron paul is going to march on washington on 11/11/11 and announce his vice-presidential candidate howard stern. host: i do not think that is going to be happening. talk to us about the development of these marches on washington over the past 48 years from dr.

king's march on washington up through the recent gatherings we have had in washington, the rally to restore sanity put on by jon stewart and stephen colbert and the gathering put on by glenn beck. both of them took place last year. guest: those were actually more in line with seeking tradition. they were rallies with speeches, performances, mainly populated by people who supported the cause. the challenge to this tradition of peaceful large march is always the fact that some people consider them almost too

conciliatory. you have people complaining. you saw this with the anti- vietnam war protestors. it is not good enough to march down the avenue and gather on the mall. you should really confront politics, whether you shut down the streets or disrupt what is going on out of the chicago democratic convention. the idea that you need put yourself in between power rather than try to take the space of washington for us and say "is ours -- it is ours and what we say counts. host: the next call is from stephen in maryland. caller: i am trying to pick up on the market is in general.

i am trying to see if the media is giving the public bits or listening to this stuff about washington and where it is going. thank you. host: how much of a role does the media have been generating interest for these modern marches on washington? guest: i think the media has become pretty selective about which marches they cover. you can have 100,000 people come for a cause now and it might not get any mention on the nightly news on the regular broadcast because they have become quite traditional. some are repeated every year, the national march for life. they do not register in the same way. they do not feel significant. i think of the million man

march, the promise keepers. the media does serve the role of promoting them ahead of time by their coverage and then covering them with the message. that is part of what the media should be doing. i do not know if they are adding to it. as always, you are going to hate the march is that your political sympathies are not with and have more sympathy for others. host: the next call is from queens, new york. caller: i wanted to ask how we can make the marches today as effective as the martin luther king march on washington. was it the effectiveness of the message? guest: it is one of the

challenges for organizers now to make marches as effective or as effective as we imagine the march in 1963 was. one of the problems in becoming accepted is that you are not as. -- one of the problems in becoming accepted is that you are not as feared. with these marches, it is important to have a very strong message. you have to build coalitions to get the numbers. it is clear that the numbers are what has become in modern politics one of the key sensors of the success of a march. you have 30,000 people here, it is a blip. over 200,000, you are going somewhere. if you get the numbers are that the million man march claimed of 800,000, you are really drawing attention.

the capital has become attuned to the sizes. that is hard. nobody can underestimate the amount of money and work it takes to get that many people to one place. that is why not everybody does it and not everybody succeeds. host: with the respect to modern-day marches, which seems to be more significant -- the size of the crowd or the message they are bringing to d.c.? guest: you have to have a large crowd to make the message amplified. people are watching. the media is watching. there is constant publicity to figure out how many people are coming. that is going to draw attention to the message. if your message is shaky, your

crowd ends up without the impact it might have had. i do not know if you are here for the jon stewart-stephen colbert march, the numbers were not that remarkable but it was a spirited, happy thing. they did not really say that much that was that different from what they had said before. if you were in the crowd, you could not hear them. they were definitely not as good at organizing marches as real, practiced organizers are. host: harrisburg, pa., jerry is on the line for democrats. you are on "washington journal" with lucy barber. caller: marchers are outdated, i think.

the last big impact in march had was in the 1960's when it brought the vietnam war to a stop and stopped the industrial military complex. isay's reality in america affected by people like ben bernanke and the fed chair working with the banks. i heard an article the other day about themin's show taking trillions of dollars out of the market on purpose. that is what impact the lives of americans today. how do you martin something like that? we need to shut wall street down. -- how do you march on something like that question are we need to shop wall street down and the financial institutions. that is what is ruining america. guest: from the beginning, it has always been a challenge to figure out who your target is. after cox's army had come to

washington and not been respected, they got arrested, they sat in jail for 20 dales and had to pay $5 fine for walking on the grass of the capital, the next went to wall street. they also saw the problems in the financial system. they did not get a lot of attention there either. in march is about the people that support the cause. it is also about the savvy of the organizers in figuring out how to touch the right setting that is also the big deal. as much as i personally lo athe the world trade organization in seattle. most of us have no idea what they're doing before. the tactics of protesting drew a lot more attention to what their power was in the international situation.

i am not suggesting any one go break windows on wall street at all. but i think people have to think about who and how they want to reach people. in some cases, it is not demonstrations. you will have much more luck with a different style of working. that is the reality. host: michigan, mike, you are on the "washington journal." caller: i think dr. king had a really good way of conveying the problems we have in the united states. the majority right now of

republicans in congress keep on saying that the people want this or that, but that is not the case. when you poll people, over 70% of the people that actually what one thing -- want one thing, the republicans are just against what the people want. to leavee, we're going it there. we're going to move on to paul from maine online for independents' as well. caller: ron paul and glenn. -- ron paul and glenn beck are both off of my radar screen.

ron paul has an upcoming proposed march. the other caller was cut off. rather than discuss ron paul, the immediate conversational topic was glenn beck. i do not care about either one of them. right after that, the discussion was media influence. lucy, you were right in the middle of this. when somebody arbitrarily decides that we will not discuss ron paul -- i do not care for him so it is not like i am defending him -- but he decides that glenn beck was a proper topic to cover. host: we're going to leave it there. i will let her come in on that. i wanted to let you and the

other viewers know i was not the one who cut that call off regarding ron paul. it had nothing to do with ron paul. the caller also mentioned he was going to announce that howard stern was going to be his vice presidential candidate. that made his statement -- it took away from the legitimacy of the gentleman's statement. that is the decision i made. it was not a decision that had anything to do with lucy barber or glenn beck. guest: some of this comes down to that every time a march is proposed, there's definitely a question among the media about whether or not it is worth covering or not. i hope you and the other people can tell that i am and historian. i do not follow politics as much as some of you do.

i think back to when they army.ed cox's there was tons of coverage. there were other people in the media are doing not to pay any attention to them. if we give them attention, they will feel more important. in the case of the bonus army, this was the veterans who came to the capital in 1932 asking for payment of an amount their promise for serving in world war -- they were promised for serving in world war i. forbidlice purposely grou reel companies from

filming it. there is some coverage. you get to see how these men look to what they're doing. but that influenced -- one of the things i really look at is how there is always a symbiotic relationship between the media authorities and the organizers. they need to dance with each other or not in a way that is very delicate at times. that is important for these things. host: eustice is on the line for republicans calling from new orleans. caller: i think one of the saddest marches was glenn beck. he really targeted toward the white people.

they're the ones who were against barack obama in that sense, even though he tried to trick people by having a martin luther king rally. it was a joke. it was really deceitful to america. now we have smaller marches in communities against injustices that have taken place now. that is my statement. host: to the poor people's march in 1968 with martin luther king, did that set the benchmark for modern marches on washington? guest: i think not. i think the poor people's march was mostly -- with all due respect for the people who tried to hold it together after martin luther king's assassination, it really turned into a trial for everyone. building an encampment on the

mall to symbolize how poor people lived was logistically very difficult. this was one of the classic cases where the federal government ended up being even more involved in the march than they intended to. the relationship between the people and the cause was messed up. they really relied on electricity and rescue to help them when rain and mud was about to overcome them. there was also the fact that radicalism had come to the civil rights groups. there were really trying to convey a message that everyone was in together. unfortunately, the latino group started to side with the native american group. i do not know if this looked better from the outside, but inside s and historian looking at the records, you just start to say that this was a little bit too much to take on. i think encampments in general

are difficult. there is a reason why the bonus march ended with them being driven out. there's just so long that the people of washington or the government will take people camping out in this city. host: in case there was any confusion, the poor people's march was in 1968, march of 1968. the march on washington with martin luther king was a march on washington for jobs and freedom in the 1950's. guest: martin luther king called for the poor people's march before his assassination. his group, the southern christian leadership conference, held it partly because of his call for it but they had very little time to organize it. it was a big endeavor to try to

replicate a shantytown on the mall. the demands for curing poverty are even more complex than killings -- curing social discrimination. caller: ina tea party-ers -- i am a tea partyer. the media has said we are extremists. i have been in the marches. i have seen the civility of the marches themselves. i wonder if you could objectively contrast the civility of the marches of the tea party versus the million man or other marches that the left would do in terms of arrests made in damage to property. guest: i am going to be absolutely frank with you. i do not know that much about the tea party, an outcome of any

specific march or anything like that. i do not want to be seen as commenting. groups that want to have peaceful, good marches can have them and do have them. it was the emphasis of the march for freedom that they would not leave a mess. part of the scale in organizing that -- the real organizer of the thing, the leaders went off to meet with president kennedy. he stayed behind with a crew of people to pick up every piece of trash. i imagine if your group is as devoted to that image, they will do the same thing. it makes such a difference as to how you are perceived wherever

you are marching and protesting in the community. that is what you want to convey, that you are part of a wider american movement and making the country better. thus, you want to bring that kind of image to it. i am offering you the caveat that i do not know. i will not going to the details of comparing what happened with the march you have done with another. but i am not surprised. host: let's get robert on the line for democrats. hansel, alabama, go ahead. caller: i was wondering if you had covered the large ku klux klan march held in washington when i was a kid. could you comment generally on

what that was about? i will take the answer off-line. guest: are you talking about 1925? host: let's assume that he is. guest: if there was another one, i might have missed it. one of my biggest dilemmas in writing the book was whether to include that march. it is very hard to get records about the ku klux klan. i am a historian and depend on the records. it made such a contrast. it was definitely a huge issue. it was not covered at all in d.c. by the white papers. it was very minimized in the sense of what it was described as -- it was described as a fraternal organization and just having their annual meeting in

d.c. and then would have a parade. that was not supposed to be a big deal. obviously, african-americans felt completely the opposite. they actually came twice. the government did intervene to some extent as to whether they could be hooded, but that was about as far as they went. otherwise, they have the permits. the black population did force that. they were able to push back and say this is not acceptable. it also became part of what the national association for the advancement of colored people used in protesting to the government. you have to understand the 1920's in d.c. in terms of the federal government and african americans is what one historian has called the worst time of race relaterelations. they were being segregated. it was remarkable it was allowed, yet it is remarkable

there was at least some resistance to it. host: fred is calling from west virginia. caller: from cabble county. marching on washington, and tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands have been marching on washington for 38 years. you talk about a political tradition. i am referring to the january- march for life, 38 years. hundreds of thousands of marchers. please speak to that issue. thank you. guest: one thing i think is really remarkable about that is the tradition of repeating it. that may not be as eloquent as i want it to be.

there is a kind of dedication to saying that we will do this year in and year out until something changes. most of the time, a march is more one-off. this is the cause. we will do it. we will hope there is miraculous change. we will not come back. the group that has continued that tradition, there is a well- organized structure. the organizer has figured out how to do it. when i spoke with the park police about different region the park police are responsible for many of the permits associated with marching in washington. they mentioned nelly, i am forgetting her last name. they spoke of the ease with which they could negotiate these

agreements. that talks to how that facilitates and makes sure that people who want to produce a break in the march have a good experience and, again and again. host: we have this week that says -- tweet that says the media will not cover marches that do not have big money behind them. rose is on the line for republicans. caller: like martin luther king, there was purpose. the tea party also has a purpose. i am not a member, but i do agree with them. i am losing the value of my home. my savings account is going down to nothing. i have spent my life working to be independent and secure from

the united states government taxpayer to pay for my way, my children, and by husband and died. i have been treated to community services many times. i find the tea party has every possible and good reason to be marching, and yet i hear the congress cursing them. host: we will leave it there because we're running out of time. how often do members of congress get involved in these things? guest: quite often as commentators or participants. during the earlier marches, there were often comments. after the suffrage march, there was a senate hearing on the march because of concerns the police had purposefully destructive it -- disrupted or

under-policed it. that meant the suffragettes had even more time to argue for their cause. other times, congressmen joined the march. no members of congress spoke with those who wanted to could sit on the stairs. quite a few did join them. host: joel is on the line for independents. caller: martin luther king had it right. he saw what people were going through, especially the black people. .e was not afraid to say it t he was murdered because of that.

the government, they do not understand what people are going through. host: we're going to leave it there. we also have this tweet asking about comparisons between the 20th century and 21st century martyrs. guest: i am not sure the corporate press was invented in the 21st century. i think there has always been the question of whether the early one was more partisan or racist in terms of whether there was a black or white press. but often changed a lot about how the coverage was. i think s consolidation happens, it will be harder sometimes. that is what i tend to call the numbers game